MNb wrote on 04/14/17 at 01:51:43:


Ivan Sokolov shares your opinion, and rejects 5...d5 as a bad move (which is right, of course).
He also claims that 5...Bb6 is best, and offers the old game Evans-Fischer as an example, where white could achieve a large advantage.

I do not know if you know the phrase of 33 Chilean miners who were saved from dying buried in a mine: We are alive the 33!
Something similar I see by analogy in my chess madness with the survival of the variant with the Nge7 system after almost one hundred and seventy-six years since it was first played in 1841 by a player named Von Heydebrand und der Lasa (see ½-½ (68) Hanstein, W-Von Heydebrand und der Lasa, T Berlin 1841).



My point of view is that it is playable if the order of moves is first 4.c3 Nge7 and not if the white side plays 4.O-O Ng-e7 given that when playing 4.c3 Nge7 5.O-O the black must respond with 5 .... d5 !? 



and if when the white side attacks the bishop of c5 by advancing central pawns 4.c3 Nge7 5.d4 exd4 6.cxd4 Bb4+ is the option to go with the bishop to Bb4 delaying the evolution of the tower in the direction of the square e1. 



Remember that this order was in the hands of former world champion Bobby Fischer but there are improvements at some point in that game (see attached pgn that details everything I am indicating here).
The same thing happens when in the order 4.c3 Nge7 5.O-O d5 6.d4 exd4 7.cxd4 Bb4 (if 7....Bb6 Transposes to the old line that I look with distrust given my bad experience in correspondence) With equal perspectives. 



In summary I see a playable line and with space to the creativity chess being that this one is played very little at present.

Best regards,
Marco.